Saturday, July 24, 2004
Passion-Bearers Boris (Roman) and Gleb (David)
Kellia: 1 Maccabees 2:1-14 Epistle: Romans 13:1-10 Gospel: St. Matthew 12:30-37
1 Maccabees 2:1-14, especially vs. 14: "And Mattathias and his sons rent their
clothes, put on sackcloth, and mourned greatly." St. John of the Ladder says, "Mourning according to God is sadness of
soul and the disposition of a sorrowing heart, which ever madly seeks that for which it thirsts; and when it fails in its quest,
it painfully pursues it, and follows in its wake grievously lamenting." This definition of mourning which the Abbot of
Sinai received from God matches precisely the portrait of Mattathias and his sons lamenting the degradation described in
today's reading. Thirsting for the holiness that is of God and from God, Mattathias saw instead only "blasphemies being
committed in Judah and Jerusalem" (vs. 6). Thereat his soul was plunged into sadness. His heart sorrowed. Failing to find
what his priest's spirit sought, "grievously lamenting," he could only follow in the boiling wake of the disaster that had
befallen the entire land of Judah.
Mattathias must be counted among the pious of God's People, those whom the Jews call "the Hasidim." His heart was
wounded by the systematic efforts of the Seleucids to unify the kingdom of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, knowing that what
God defined as holy was being ruined - the People, the City, the Temple, the sacred vessels, even innocent babes.
Mattathias' mourning, however, was not mere sorrow at a personal loss, but "mournful repentance." For his grieving, as
described in today's reading, included all the elements of godly sorrow provoked by sin and wrong. The truly pious do not
stand apart from others grief nor suffer evil as an individual loss. One who fears God experiences behaviors contrary to
God's revealed will as affronts and sins against the Lord. The objective actions, which Mattathias perceived as wrongs
according to God's judgment, which he saw as sins, evoked his mourning. The natural, healthy reaction to sin always is
mournful repentance, godly sorrow (1 Cor. 7:10).
Consider the conditions for which Mattathias and his sons mourned: "the ruin of my people" (1 Mac. 2:7) was his reference
to the murder of the inhabitants of Jerusalem killed during a truce (1 Mac. 1:30). "The ruin of the holy city" (1 Mac. 2:7)
was an allusion to the sacking and destruction of the sacred city of Jerusalem by the chief Seleucid collector of tribute (1
Mac. 1:31). Using the phrase, "the sanctuary given over to the aliens" (1 Mac. 2:7), he was speaking of the invasion of the
Temple for pagan rites (1 Mac. 1:46), a sanctuary which God forbade Gentiles to enter. When he says that "her glorious
vessels have been carried into captivity" (1 Mac. 2:9), he was recalling the looting of the holy vessels of the Temple by
Antiochus (1 Mac. 22-24). Added to all this, Mattathias remembered that the babes of God's people "have been killed in
her streets" (1 Mac. 2:9), for infants found circumcised were killed by the Seleucids (1 Mac. 1:60).
Which of these deeds was not contrary to God's will as stated in explicit terms in the Divine Law? "Thou shalt do no
murder. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor" (Ex. 20:13,15,16). His grief was
mournful repentance.
Mattathias was plunged into mournful repentance by blatant sins being committed in every city and village (vs. 6). It was
spiritually appropriate for him to repent and mourn. When he cried, "Alas! Why was I born to see this...." and he and "his
sons rent their clothes, put on sackcloth, and mourned" (vs. 14). It was not merely grief according to the flesh - natural
when one's countrymen and cities are being destroyed by an enemy, for notice "blasphemies," "holy place" and "profaned"
(vss. 6,12). His mourning clearly must be called mournful repentance.
Open to me the doors of repentance, O Life-giver; for my soul goeth early to the temple of Thy holiness, coming in the
temple of my body, wholly polluted.
